Kiirassoitin – instruments from the Purgatory; the name alone makes pretty clear from the get-go that these aren’t your dad’s guitars!

Simo Iiskola, the man behind Kiiras Instruments, is a custom guitar maker (and drum builder!) from Central Finland. His main guitar line – the Katras Series (katras is Finnish for flock) – stands firm as a wholehearted manifesto to Metaldom, both visually and in terms of sound.

Kitarablogi got the chance to spend some quality time with two Kiiras Katras guitars – the Ahti and the Ukonkirves (prices starting from 1,495 €).

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The Kiiras Ahti (named after the Finnish water god) is a two-horned affair, looking like the wild love child of a Fender Strat and a Burns Bison.

The hand-distressed, rustic finishes on Katras Series instruments resemble the bark of the birch tree.

The reviewed Ahti was built using a three-piece alder body.

All Kiiras Katras guitars feature a three-piece body, with a wide central piece and two narrower pieces added on the sides.

The Kiiras Ukonkirves (ukon kirves is the Finnish equivalent of Thor’s Hammer) is a Flying V-shaped electric guitar.

The look on these Kiiras instruments is non-more-Metal, and the pickups have been chosen accordingly.

The Ahti comes with a pair of passive humbuckers – the Seymour Duncan Sentient (neck) and Nazgûl (bridge)…

…while the Ukonkirves sports a sole Nazgûl humbucker in the bridge position.

The stainless steel pickup rings, switch plates and jack plates are all custom-made to fit the birch bark theme.

The Ahti’s controls comprise a three-way switch – giving you neck pickup, off [!], and bridge pickup – as well as separate volume controls for each pickup and a master tone.

The Ukonkirves makes do with two controls – volume and tone.

The electronics cavities look very clean, and they are shielded with conductive paint and a foil-lined wooden lid.

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Despite its ”distressed mythical old plank” looks, the Kiiras Ahti feels every bit the smooth, well-balanced, and comfortable custom-made guitar it is.

The flattish C-profile neck is fast, but chunky enough not to feel flimsy or uncomfortable. The frets have been seated and dressed with great care, although some might find the look of the fret ends a tiny bit scruffy. The important thing is, though, that the frets (and fret ends!) feel even smoother than the guitar’s cool satin finish!

The reviewed Ahti was set up for standard-C tuning. The set up was fantastic, offering a slinky, yet precise playing feel, coupled with an in-tune Floyd Rose.

Seymour Duncan’s Sentient and Nazgûl humbuckers are among the darkest and most brutal passive humbuckers offered by the company. Still, these pickups manage to combine brooding darkness with a very musical and rich top end. Sure, these humbuckers will kick your amp’s butt, but they don’t offer blunt power at the expense of great tone.

I’m sure some will find the looks of these two Kiiras Katras guitars a little bit too much of a visual statement. They’re entitled to their views, and won’t have any problems finding a black instrument.

There’s no denying, though, that both the Kiiras Ahti and the Kiiras Ukonkirves are about much more than just bold looks. These are excellent custom-made electric guitars, completely geared towards the needs of modern Metal guitarists.

Simo Iiskola’s Kiiras Instruments also offers plenty of custom options, from the pickups and electronics used all the way to different headstock shapes. If these guitars rock your boat, go check them out!

The guitar maker Tokai is known worldwide for its high-quality versions of classic vintage guitars, and the instruments are loved and played by many.

But now there’s an interesting new model, devised by Tokai Guitars Nordic, called the Tokai TST-50-FS Modern (current price in Finland: 1,650 €; hard case included). This is an S-type guitar for the player who wants classic looks combined with modern features.

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Tokai’s brand-new TST-50-FS Modern is available in three different versions, which share the same basic build and features, but which differ in terms of finish and pickup choice.

The hottest guitar in our trio is the TST-50-FS in Ebony Transparent, which comes with a pair of Hot Stack Plus pickups (STK-S7) and the sheer force of nature that is Seymour Duncan’s SH-14 Custom 5 humbucker.

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The Tokai TST-50-FS Modern is part of the brand’s Made-in-Japan Premium Series, and all three instruments are perfect examples of the excellent workmanship Tokai has to offer.

The new model comes with a rounded neck profile (Tokai call it ”Thin U”) that feels and plays like a dream. The modern fingerboard radius and excellent fretwork make string choking a thing of the past.

The vibrato feels very precise and stays in tune far better than any vintage-style vibrato bridge ever could.

The ash body, locking tuners and steel bridge give the TST-50-FS Modern a sparkling unplugged voice with a long and clear sustain.

Played with an amp the differences between the three versions become very clear:

The Three-Tone Sunburst version gives you the tones you’d expect from a factory-modded vintage S-type.

Thanks to the vintage-style single coils – as well as the PAF-inspired bridge humbucker – you get a lot of clarity, dynamics and spank.

I’d call the FS Modern’s Sienna Sunburst variant the ”LA Studio model”, which will deal with any musical situation by giving you a first-rate West Coast sound.

The stacked coil pickups are free from hum and buzz, and they give you a fine, slightly ”pre-compressed” sound that sits well in any mix. The JB-humbucker offers just the right amount of ”push” to complement the neck and middle pickups perfectly.

If you look for an S-style electric that will take to high gain settings like the proverbial duck to water, you need look no further. The TST-50-FS Modern in Ebony Transparent simply loves gain and distortion, while still making a great figure when it comes to clean tones.

This is noise-free high gain heaven with a healthy dose of bottom end punch and a chunky mid-range.

This is a fantastic alternative to the traditional, vintage-flavoured Tokai models. Both the playability and sounds this trio has to offer are top-notch, and I’m sure you will find your favourite modern S-type guitar from one of the three alternatives.

Tokai’s TST-50-FS Modern offers you custom shop quality at a very fair price.

You could call J. Leachim Guitars Finland’s answer to Nash Guitars. Just like the American maker, JLG, too, don’t make their guitars from scratch, from the raw wood. Instead, J. Leachim assembles guitars from bought in unfinished necks and bodies, as well as parts and hardware sourced from a number of reputable sources. J. Leachim Guitars’ forte lies in their finish work, and the relicing of guitars.

J. Leachim’s main man, Jan Merivirta, supplied Kitarablogi.com with an example of his Jazzcaster model, which sports a pristine, “NOS” nitro finish.

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The J. Leachim Guitars Jazzcaster (prices start from approx. 1,300 €; hard case incl.) is a very enticing mix of different classic guitars:

The Jazzcaster’s maple neck has been sourced from Northwest Guitars. It’s a Tele-style neck sporting jumbo frets, as well as a modern fretboard radius of 9.5 inches.

The Guitarbuild body has been crafted from very lightweight swamp ash. Filtertron-sized pickup routs have been added at the J. Leachim workshop.

J. Leachim Guitars clearly know how to use nitro lacquer properly:

The body has received an exquisite, thinly applied gloss finish in Surf Green, while the neck has been finished with a thin satin clear coat.

The fretwork on the Jazzcaster is great. The rosewood fingerboard comes with 21 jumbo-sized frets.

The top nut has been carved from a piece of genuine bovine bone. Some may find the nut’s shaping a tad angular, but I don’t mind; it’s only cosmetics, after all.

A nice set of lightly-aged Klusons takes care of tuning duties on this J. Leachim model.

The Jazzcaster’s bridge and vibrato tailpiece have both been sourced from WD Music:

The vibrato is a version of the Fender Jazzmaster/Jaguar-vibrato, albeit without the original’s lock-off mechanism. The original locking mechanism is notoriously difficult to set up properly, so leaving it off is actually a good thing (in the view of most guitarists).

Many guitarists today dislike the original Jazzmaster-bridge, too, because the individual height-adjustment screws on the bridge saddles tend to work themselves loose with modern (light gauge) strings. Originally, this bridge – as well as the vibrato – has been designed to work with the stiffer string sets of the late 1950s (mostly 012 or 013 sets). With a set of 010s or 009s the Jazzmaster-bridge’s adjustment screws tend to rattle a lot.

Many modern makers – like J. Leachim Guitars – substitute the Jazzmaster-bridge with a Fender Mustang-bridge for this very reason. The Mustang-bridge is a direct replacement, and it uses differently sized bridge saddles to preset the fretboard radius permanently, so nothing can work itself loose and rattle.

Gretsch Filtertron-style pickups are the ”in” thing at the moment.

J. Leachim’s Jazzcaster comes with a pair of TV Jones-pickups – there’s a vintage-type TV Classic in the neck position, and a more powerful Powertron model placed near the bridge.

The customer who ordered this particular Jazzcaster specified a reverse tone control (working clockwise), so this is what can be found on this instrument.

J. Leachim Guitars use a stereo phone jack, which keeps a firmer grip on the guitar lead’s plug, as well as making sure you always have a good connection to ground.

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In my view, the J. Leachim Jazzcaster very successfully blends the ergonomics of the Jazzmaster body with a Gretschy tone. Thanks to its very smooth Jazzmaster-vibrato, the JLG Jazzcaster has a more open sound than, for example, a Cabronita Telecaster.

The Jazzcaster plays like a dream, as long as you’re willing to live with the typical, well-known compromises of the Jazzmaster/Jaguar-vibrato.

With modern, slinky strings, big bends – especially, when played higher up the neck – can quite easily make the high e-string jump out of its bridge groove. In a way this isn’t so much a fault, but more of a feature of this vibrato system, because the strings cross the bridge at a relatively shallow angle. With the stiff string sets of the late Fifties the system works fine, but for huge Blues bends with a contemporary 010-gauge set you should maybe invest in an additional bridge roller.

I would like to see a smoother taper on the tone control, though. On the review instrument the treble roll-off was more a matter of on or off, with everything happening right at the end of of the knob’s travel.

The Jazzcaster has a beautiful acoustic tone, with a bell-like ring and an open, yet firm body.

TV Jones’ acclaimed Filtertron-style pickups seem like a perfect fit for this model, adding a good deal of chime and twang, without sounding too bright or biting. Being humbuckers, the TV Jones pickups are also immune against hum and buzz, unlike a traditional Jazzmaster’s singlecoil units, which are not a million miles removed from a Gibson P-90.

This clip gives you an idea of the J. Leachim Jazzcaster’s clean sounds (starting with the neck pickup):

When plugged into an overdriven channel, the Jazzcaster wins you over with a chunky, aggressive and compact voice, which is just the ticket for Seventies-style Rock or Punk. Famous Filtertron-users in the Rock genre include AC/DC’s original rhythm guitarist Malcom Young, and the Who’s Pete Townshend, who frequently used Gretsch guitars as his ”secret weapon” in the studio.

In my view, J. Leachim’s Jazzcaster is a beautiful, and very well-made, Fender-inspired guitar, with a sound that’s all its own. You could think the Jazzcaster was only for Jazz or Country, but in reality this fine guitar covers a much wider area of musical styles.